About 80 in Prince George’s still without power

More than 60,000 utility customers lost power because of Friday thunderstorms

This story was updated at 11:28 a.m. June 25.

by Daniel J. GrossStaff Writer

Following Friday’s thunderstorms that cut power to thousands of residences and reportedly ripped rooftops off some apartment complexes in the Bladensburg area, Pepco announced it has restored power to most of those affected by the storm in Prince George’s County.

In total, 45,000 Pepco customers were without power after Friday’s inclement weather, in addition to 19,000 county Baltimore Gas & Electric customers.

The most heavily affected areas included Hyattsville, Cheverly, parts of northeast Washington, D.C., and Bladensburg, which was the hardest hit because of a microburst — a short, intense draft that travels to the ground and produces winds faster than 100 mph, said Mark Brady, a county fire/EMS spokesman.

About 70 of the county’s 225,000 Pepco customers still were without power in Prince George’s as of Monday morning, said Pepco spokeswoman Courtney Nogas.

Seven of the county’s 8,000 BGE customers in Prince George’s still were without power as of Monday morning, according to BGE’s website.

“Twenty-four-seven, we’ve had crews. We were prepared ahead of time so we were fully deployed with crews and brought in crews from other utilities,” said Nogas, who noted they received assistance from utility companies such as Delmarva Power, BGE, SMECO and Atlantic City Electric.

Nogas said many trees in the area were uprooted and came down on top of power lines and utility poles.

Pepco is reminding customers to stay clear of power lines and report any additional outages and downed lines that are not being serviced by calling 877-PEPCO62.